[Aardwolf]

...because in the other couple of threads it was just a side-topic.

Voter ID laws. Discuss.



My take:

Total lack of actual voter identity fraud + disproportionately affecting people who would vote Democratic + enacted by Republicans = power grab.
Having to go out of your way to get a photo ID you didn't previously need + having to pay money for it + it has to have an expiration date = poll tax = unconstitutional.

And the $ amount involved in getting a photo ID is more than what poll taxes were.

[BrotherBryon]

Well what do think they mean when they talk about true conservative values?

[666maslo666]

Dunno about voter IDs, but compulsory universal IDs are common in Europe, and I support those. It is important that government can easily and reliably identify its citizens when dealing with them, not just for voting but for plenty of other interactions. They should be issued for free, tough.

[deathfun]

In Canada, we've always had to provide ID in order to vote...
Or am I going about this all wrong?

[TwentyPercentCooler]

The republicans want voter ID laws for the wrong reasons, but I don't disagree with the concept. Why the hell can someone vote without showing ID? Who the hell doesn't have ID?

[BlueFlames]

Who the hell doesn't have ID?

In the United States?

1)  Elderly persons who no longer drive.
2)  Urban residents who don't need a car to get where they're going.
3)  University students who couldn't park on/near campus, even if they did have a car.

I actually fell into the third catagory for a midterm and a Presidential election, prior to getting my driver's license.

The second and third catagories are voting blocks that trend strongly Democratic and can be difficult to motivate to vote.  Erecting roadblocks to that is a pretty naked voter-suppression tactic.  It's even more exposed in states like Pennsylvania, where a driver's license is only a valid voter ID, if it was issued thirty days or more prior to the election, while a gun license is a valid voter ID from the moment it's issued.  (Non-drivers trend Democratic, but non-driving gun-owners trend Republican.)  It's more exposed still, when you note that there are larger vote fraud problems associated with absentee ballots, but none of the states instituting in-person voter ID requirements have implimented anything similar for absentee-voters, as absentee-voters tend to vote more reliably Republican than in-person voters.  Then you get into the restrictions being placed on early voting in many of the same states as voter ID changes, and it just gets ludicrous.

Why the hell can someone vote without showing ID?

Because in the United States, voting is a privilege of citizenship, but holding a photo ID is not a responsibility of citizenship.  The real question should be:  Why should drivers, gun-carriers, and international travelers be a special class of citizen, while everyone else is reduced to a second-class status, who cannot vote?

[TwentyPercentCooler]

"Second-class citizen," because you choose not to have ID (which is a terrible idea, by the way)? You can't be serious.

Government-issued identification is not expensive, nor is it a hassle to acquire. And I believe it IS a responsibility of citizenship. Just because the government doesn't require it all the time, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the initiative.

Again, yes, I agree with the assertion that the republicans want voter ID laws for the wrong reasons, and some of the current laws are blatantly intended to prevent non-whites and the poor in general from voting. But I don't think it's too much to ask that someone identify themselves before being allowed to take a (small) part in shaping the future of the country.

[Mongoose]

Government-issued identification is not expensive, nor is it a hassle to acquire. And I believe it IS a responsibility of citizenship. Just because the government doesn't require it all the time, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the initiative.

Any expense at all can be prohibitive if you're on a very tight budget, and it can be a real hassle to acquire if you're elderly, don't have much access to transportation, and live some distance away from your local DMV office (which generally also handles non-license IDs).  If it was a completely-free process that presented no real hardships, it'd be one thing, but that's not the case right now.

[Ghostavo]

I'm not really sure since I'm not from the US, but if the current system works practically without fault, the argument that identification for the purposes of voting is somehow necessary doesn't seem to hold.

[Mongoose]

Oh, and here's another level of complication: to get any sort of government ID, you're pretty much required to bring in your original birth certificate...and there are a lot of people out there who simply don't have one, or whose name has changed in some way, which opens up a whole new can of worms.

[Aardwolf]

Government-issued identification is not expensive, nor is it a hassle to acquire. And I believe it IS a responsibility of citizenship. Just because the government doesn't require it all the time, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the initiative.

As I said in the OP, it's more expensive than poll taxes were.

Citation = my dad; anyone care to look this up and get some hard numbers?

[Klaustrophobia]

just checked virginia's DMV page, a picture ID costs $10.

[Aardwolf]

Hm... says on the wikipedia article "Poll tax (United States)", Jefferson Parish, Louisiana had a $1 poll tax in 1917, which is equivalent to $18.14 "today" (doesn't say when), and Mississipi had a $2 poll tax in 1966, which is equivalent to $14.33 today. Holy crap that's a lot of inflation.

So... dollar amount is more, but equivalent amount is less. But also extra work involved e.g. what Mongoose said. But then again, a driver's license needs to be renewed every 5 years, and federal elections are every 2 years... of course if you're only interested in presidential elections, that's every 4 years... and if you don't actually need to drive, so much for the side-effect benefits of having a driver's license.

Wait, does this mean you could lose your right to vote if a traffic judge revoked your driver's license? Can you get a picture ID aside from a driver's license / learner's permit?




Does anyone disagree with the assertion that "preventing voter identity fraud" is just a cover for "power grab"?

[MP-Ryan]

In Canada, anyone can get a provincially-provided federally-recognized ID.  Drivers get it by default, but anyone can get them.

I don't knowing, showing ID to vote here is just such a habit that I really don't see this as a big deal, especially considering there are multiple ways to have government-issued photo ID:
-Passport
-Driver's License
-Firearms License
-Provincial Photo ID
-Citizenship ID card (for people who have immigrated)

Does anyone disagree with the assertion that "preventing voter identity fraud" is just a cover for "power grab"?

Yup.  The whole "I don't have my birth certificate" argument doesn't hold water.  There are precisely three ways you can prove citizenship:  passport, birth certificate, or citizenship ID card (this is international law).  If you cannot provide one of the three, you cannot prove your citizenship (granted the birth certificate can actually be issued by a foreign country if it shows parentage, but that's a more complicated scenario - this is why my son holds dual Canada-UK citizenship).  I lost count of the number of Americans I had to explain that to at the border.  A social security number is not proof of citizenship.

So yeah... this civil libertarian doesn't have a real problem with voter ID at elections.  Non-citizens cannot vote; ergo, you should have to prove valid citizenship.

[Aardwolf]

I didn't say "requiring identification is a cover for power grab", I said "preventing voter identity fraud is a cover for power grab".

[Ghostavo]

Does anyone disagree with the assertion that "preventing voter identity fraud" is just a cover for "power grab"?

Yup.  The whole "I don't have my birth certificate" argument doesn't hold water.  There are precisely three ways you can prove citizenship:  passport, birth certificate, or citizenship ID card (this is international law).  If you cannot provide one of the three, you cannot prove your citizenship (granted the birth certificate can actually be issued by a foreign country if it shows parentage, but that's a more complicated scenario - this is why my son holds dual Canada-UK citizenship).  I lost count of the number of Americans I had to explain that to at the border.  A social security number is not proof of citizenship.

I'm not sure if you had another question in mind when you were answering, but regardless of how you see voter ID...

[Scotty]

I was just about to go looking for the Daily Show clip that was talking about this issue.

It really isn't designed to prevent fraud.  It's designed to give Republicans an edge in key states.

The Daily Show clip I mentioned.

[Dragon]

I don't know what you're complaining about. In Poland, an ID is required for every darn thing that involves any sort of interaction with government employees. Around here, people carry their IDs around all the time. It's mandatory and IIRC, they aren't free. And for many things, you can't even do with a driver's license (I don't know about gun permits, they're uncommon), you need your personal ID card.

[Klaustrophobia]

Hm... says on the wikipedia article "Poll tax (United States)", Jefferson Parish, Louisiana had a $1 poll tax in 1917, which is equivalent to $18.14 "today" (doesn't say when), and Mississipi had a $2 poll tax in 1966, which is equivalent to $14.33 today. Holy crap that's a lot of inflation.

So... dollar amount is more, but equivalent amount is less. But also extra work involved e.g. what Mongoose said. But then again, a driver's license needs to be renewed every 5 years, and federal elections are every 2 years... of course if you're only interested in presidential elections, that's every 4 years... and if you don't actually need to drive, so much for the side-effect benefits of having a driver's license.

Wait, does this mean you could lose your right to vote if a traffic judge revoked your driver's license? Can you get a picture ID aside from a driver's license / learner's permit?

yes.  that's what i was talking about.  and i don't see why i couldn't be made free if we're going to require it to vote.

Does anyone disagree with the assertion that "preventing voter identity fraud" is just a cover for "power grab"?

yes.  voter ID is a valid and logical concept.  it is required for a LOT less important things than voting.  and as others have pointed out, it's common practice LOADS of other places.  honestly, when i found out it didn't exist already, i was shocked (i've only been legal for the last election, and i used absentee voting).  it's not hard to get an ID.  i have 4 government issued picture IDs.  many more than that if you count student IDs and such.  if you can't be bothered to spend a day's effort to ensure you can vote, i don't want you voting anyway.  much the same way as those morons who claimed the ballot was too confusing in florida.  when i got my driver's license, i had lost my birth certificate or SSN card or something like that that i needed.  i had to go through the crap of getting it replaced.  yeah it's a pain in the ass, but it's not hard. 

bottom line, you shouldn't get to strike down a valid law by saying "oh, but it will hurt people who can't be bothered to follow it!"  just as you can say it's a power grab by the republicans trying to stop democrats from voting, you could say it's a power grab by the democrats looking the other way with their voters/liberal organizations committing fraud.  and to me, stopping fraud FAR outweighs making people go stand in line at the DMV.

[Ghostavo]

Does anyone disagree with the assertion that "preventing voter identity fraud" is just a cover for "power grab"?

Seriously, he's not saying "duh, voter id is bad... m'kay?". He's saying that the specific reasons presented for these laws by the (republican) politicians enacting them are bogus and enable them to disenfranchise voters. But I guess if a video of one of the architects of one of these laws admitting that and the fact that voter fraud (you know, the reason given) has such small numbers that it might as well not exist do nothing to make you see that, I'm not sure what will...